I bet you think this blog is about you 💁♀️🪞
Creating content that serves your user, not your brand
One of the earliest examples of practical value has an interesting story.
Back in 1895, France had only 350 cars on the road. Michelin, the tire company, needed a way to encourage more people to drive, more people would need more tires.
So, what could the brand do to generate more demand?
They did something very clever, in fact, this strategy is still around 128 years later. The tyre company published the Michelin Guide. Rather than publishing content on how superior their tires were, with product specs and descriptions of the different tyre options (snooze 😴), they focused on content that people actually care about - getting around and seeing the world.
Michelin harnessed the principle of offering customers practical value. Practical value is all about creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience, with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
Why does this work? People like being helpful. In fact, research shows that being helpful can make you happier, healthier and add more meaning to your life. So by providing useful, helpful or valuable content, brands increase the chance that consumers will share and activate the network effect.
I come from a country where community was always very present and nurtured. Nowadays, people are less connected but still feel the need to be part of something. We don’t always have opportunities to help our friends and families who might live thousands of miles away.
But, sharing useful information online is a way we can foster some sense of community. When we share helpful information, our intention is to make someone happier, healthier or better off with this knowledge, and while we do so we amplify brands and organisations.
There are three strategies you can use to generate more practical value.
🎁 1. Package your knowledge and expertise
This challenges the traditional paradigm of how most companies think about marketing strategy. Typically, brands focus on talking about how great they are as a company and product features and experience. That’s fine, if you’re okay with just ‘fine’. That kind of marketing doesn’t necessarily inspire people to share your content, and when something reads like an ad, people are less interested in sharing it. So instead of talking about how great you are as a brand, how about giving your consumers something of value?
You’re probably not going to share an ad for ‘iShares’ funds managed by BlackRock, but you might share an interesting episode from their financial trends podcast. Or you might not want to promote a fish supplier, but ‘Fish Said Fred’ caught on to this strategy and started publishing recipes featuring their responsibly-sourced range of fish as a way of offering consumers value for free, while promoting their product.
It’s useful, helps you impress at your next dinner party and gives the customer an in-road to mention your brand when they get compliments on how great the meal was. Because the recipes don’t only feature their products, they ‘whisper’ the brand rather than shout it, people are more willing to share the recipes with their friends and network.
To develop your own packaged knowledge and expertise, consider the intersection of what your company can speak to and what your current or potential audience would need. Think about B2B brands like Hotjar that have a blog on their website, providing value to readers about marketing and sales content such as “Using heat maps to improve your website’s UX: 5 ways to get started”. This kind of content increases advocacy by helping potential customers realise they have a pain point and increases adoption when companies address how they can help solve that problem with their expertise.
🌟 Tip: Provide some, not all, information. You want to have a hook that makes viewers want more. Be concise and switch up the content format from time to time - experiment with blogs, listicles, videos, infographics or email.
💯 2. Use the Rule of 100 when pricing
A common consumer psychology strategy to show savings.
The rule states that if the price of a product is under $100, show savings as a percentage. If the item costs more, show savings in dollars. Imagine you’re at Zara Home and you see a gorgeous bed linen on sale with two stickers, one showing 25% off, the other showing the reduced price from $250 to $185.
In both cases, the consumer pays the same amount, so they should be equally motivating, no matter how we frame the price right? Not quite. The drop in price is more motivating than the percentage drop. The amount ‘off’ is larger than the percentage, and the price point changes from over $200 to under it. This technique proves to be more motivating to drive people to buy.
📍 3. Use reference points
People don’t evaluate things in absolute terms, we base our evaluations on comparisons. We all use reference points to identify whether an item is well-priced.
Let’s use the (wonderful) example of rent (💸💸💸💸).
If like me, you live in London, the average price for a 1-bedroom apartment is £2,039 a month. So if you found an apartment in the same area, same amenities and with the same square footage at £1,600, you’d think you found the bargain of the century. But if put that same apartment in Birmingham where the average 1-bedroom apartment costs £750 per month, you probably wouldn’t be very happy paying almost 3x the money.
Even though the apartment and price are exactly the same, the reference point in these two locations is vastly different. You’re getting a steal in one and ripped off in another. People expect to pay significantly more in London, so the perceived value of renting the same apartment in London for more than double the amount, is much higher.
Companies know this and take advantage of the psychological phenomenon when it comes to pricing. By anchoring your audience to the right reference point you’ll be better able to show the economic value of your offering.
A common practice is to use a competitor’s pricing.
Take Harry’s Razor’s - the brand’s success is not only due to its marketing campaigns, but also due to its leveraging a competitor’s price. Harry’s didn’t create the reference point, they just used it to their advantage by anchoring the brand to 43% savings against the leading competitor.
📣📣 Now for all my B2B brands in the back who can’t anchor on a competitor’s price as a reference point, here’s what you can do: use your own pricing plan to highlight value. For example, the website tool Miro offers customers a 20% discount when they opt for a yearly plan instead of a monthly one.
To successfully introduce practical value to your services or products, there are three key takeaways:
🔑 Think about ways to leverage both content marketing and framing discounts when providing practical value. It’s not about either or, but both. The good thing is that they’re not mutually exclusive, meaning your brand can use both to highlight practical value and drive people to talk, share and purchase.
🔑 When offering content don’t make it all about yourself, focus on helping others, not your brand. People aren’t stupid, they know a sales spiel so make it about them, help them, give away useful things, and whisper rather than yell about your brand.
🔑 When offering savings make sure you use the Rule of 100 and reference points. Make sure the discount is big enough, and use reference points to highlight discounts in the right way.
Thank you for tuning in to my newsletter! See you next tomorrow as we investigate a brand that instilled practical value to better serve their customers.
Have a contentful day 🌞
Emma